Outraged by Espionage

Bob Menendez and Angela Merkel get rude reminders of how the spy world works.

Two new spy stories surfaced during the past week. One involved the United States’ apparent recruitment of a German Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND) foreign intelligence officer and an ongoing investigation of a Bundeswehr official who might also have been turned, together resulting in the CIA Chief of Station in Berlin being declared persona non grata and expelled from the country. The second concerned an investigation launched by Sen. Robert Menendez of New Jersey relating to a possible Cuban sourced news story that was apparently intended to discredit him.

The German intelligence officer was reportedly recruited as a penetration of his own service to inform the National Security Agency (NSA) about what Berlin might be contemplating doing relating to Edward Snowden and the NSA spying scandal. His arrest drew a predictable angry response from senior German politicians, including Chancellor Angela Merkel. Merkel, herself a target of the NSA program, has demanded to know why Washington would continue to spy on a friend in such an unseemly fashion. Her wrath might be more feigned than real, and might be in response to public demands to “do something,” but the expulsion of the CIA Chief is unprecedented and sends an extremely strong signal. I am nevertheless sure that at least some of her advisers with actual intelligence agency experience have reminded her that governments fund spy agencies to collect information from friends and enemies alike. That is their job, and it also might be noted that the top priority for any intelligence organization is to prevent other intelligence organizations from penetrating its security and obtaining its secrets. You can only do that by getting an agent inside the other guy’s agency before he gets to you.

And as for spying on friends, even the closest of relationships in the intelligence world have limits. The liaison relationship between Germany and the United States is indeed very close, but there are undoubtedly many things that Berlin knows that it might choose not to share for any number of reasons. Having your own man or woman inside is the only way to find out what is being withheld. Is the risk of getting caught worth the possible gain? That is impossible to know until you actually are inside looking around.

Traditionally, every large intelligence organization spent a lot of its time and effort on targeting friends. In the old days of the Warsaw Pact, the KGB had agents inside the Czech, Polish, Hungarian, and East German spy agencies just to make sure that everyone was toeing the line. The U.S. behaved likewise with its friends in NATO, excluding only the British and Canadians with whom there was and still is a bilateral agreement forbidding such activity. There is no reason to assume that the end of the Cold War in any way changed that dynamic.

The Menendez case is equally slippery. Sen. Robert Menendez, a Cuban American, is one of the most outspoken critics of the communist Castro government. He is now claiming that a deliberately fabricated news story surfaced when he was running for reelection in 2012 and was anticipating becoming Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, a position he currently holds. The story alleged that he had paid for sex with two underage girls while on a visit to the Dominican Republic. Per Menendez, the story was clearly planted to damage his campaign and to force him to relinquish the committee chair. He further claims that the Central Intelligence Agency has now collected evidence that identifies the internet IP addresses that were used to float the story to the media and that the links have been traced back to known Cuban intelligence officers.

The Menendez case is particularly interesting in that it was a somewhat successful attempt by the Cuban spy agency to influence political developments inside the United States even though the Senator won his election. Menendez expressed his outrage, “…I think it is incredibly troublesome that a foreign government would try to interfere either with a federal election or the seating of a senator on a specific committee in order to pursue its foreign policy goals.”

From a technical viewpoint, the planted story itself was carefully prepared, linking the date of the alleged incident to an actual Menendez visit to the Dominican Republic, where he was flown in on a private jet as the guest of a local millionaire eye doctor named Salomon Melgen. Two women backstopped the newspaper account by swearing that they had been with Menendez and had been paid for their services, though they subsequently recanted.

Since the appearance of the fabricated news report some of the mud has certainly stuck to Menendez, as can be readily observed by Googling his name and Dominican Republic, but the story behind the story is that the attempt to smear Menendez is perhaps describable as a bit of intelligence agency blowback.

Menendez’s anger is understandable, but for many years the United States has been routinely engaged worldwide in “covert action,” which includes employing fictitious stories to support specific policies and actions as well as to discredit foreign leaders who are not fully on board politically. This was particularly true in Latin America where it was easy and relatively cheap to acquire local journalists as intelligence assets. Many of the stories produced through that mechanism targeted Cuba and its government, which was then and is now viewed in Washington as the Western Hemisphere’s political bad boy, so it is possible that the Cubans felt that they had a score to settle.

The recruitment of foreign journalists frequently involves providing them with information that in turn enables them to prepare what are referred to as “press placements.” Most large CIA Stations control one or more local journalists and an occasional editor. While US law prohibits intelligence agencies from feeding false information to American journalists, foreign media representatives are fair game. Many local journalists welcome the arrangement as it gives them additional tax free income while also occasionally providing them with information that can be used to further their own careers.

The curious thing about the Menendez case is that the Cuban Directorate of Intelligence appears to have picked the wrong story, believing that a sex case would prove most damaging to the Senator’s career. According to the Washington Post, Menendez might soon be charged regarding an ongoing Justice Department public integrity division investigation over his allegedly doing favors for Salomon Melgen, whom he stayed with in the Dominican Republic. Menendez reportedly twice intervened with federal health-care officials over a finding that Melgen had overbilled Medicare by $8.9 million for eye treatments at his clinics. The senator also pressured the State and Commerce departments to use their influence over the Dominican Republic to confirm a port security contract for a company partly owned by Melgen. Menendez might learn to his regret that the truth is sometimes more damaging that fiction.

The indignation of Merkel over the American spies and of Menendez over the audacity of the Cubans is understandable, but it is all part and parcel of things that spy agencies do regularly. Did Washington learn anything important by monitoring the BND reporting on NSA? Probably not, but intelligence collection is a bit of a crap shoot, looking for something that you don’t necessarily know is there, much like the Donald Rumsfeld observation that “the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, or vice versa.” Likewise, did the cleverly executed Cuban press placement succeed in bringing down Robert Menendez? No, but if it had been developed a bit earlier and been picked up in more of the mainstream media, it just might have.

Philip Giraldi, a former CIA officer, is executive director of the Council for the National Interest.

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23 Responses to Outraged by Espionage

…where he was flown in on a private jet as the guest of a local millionaire eye doctor named Salomon Melgen. Two women backstopped the newspaper account by swearing that they had been with Menendez and had been paid for their services, though they subsequently recanted.

When I read this my first thought was, “The Melgen angle sounds a lot more ‘interesting’ than the women.”

“And as for spying on friends, even the closest of relationships in the intelligence world have limits.”

That may be so, but I think you badly underestimate the effect this affair has already had and could potentially have on the perception of the US in Germany. Worse than the spying itself – which nobody in Germany believes to be limited to security issues/counter-terrorism; the common suspicion is that one of its main goals is industrial espionage and the like – is the dismissive and arrogant reaction by the US. Obama hasn’t even commented on it yet as far as I know (but then he probably thinks that he, with his nobel peace prize, is still adored in Germany – which is not the case, to put it mildly). This has once again confirmed the perception of a large part of the public that the US is basically a rogue state, operating on a “might is right”-principle even against its allies and doing whatever it can get away with.
Personally I hope that Germany will retaliate by spying in the US (the Israelis’ conduct would be a wonderful model to follow) but unfortunately the current leadership is probably too weak-minded and too mindlessly Atlanticist to do this.

“The U.S. behaved likewise with its friends in NATO, excluding only the British and Canadians with whom there was and still is a bilateral agreement forbidding such activity.” This statement contradicts inferences in other parts of the article by Giraldi that spy agencies must spy on allies.

At this point Germany has no choice but to spy on the US, at least within Germany. Our government lies, lies, and and lies again. The saying “Do it to me once, shame on you. Do it to me twice, shame on me” certainly applies to this situation.

And its time to close the US military installations in Europe and disband NATO as well. The cold war is over. The Soviet Union is gone. Western Europe can defend itself from any imagined threat without the US. We simply don’t have the economy anymore to maintain a world-wide military presence.

With all due respect to Mr. Giraldi, I think the basic problem here is far more than simple business as usual espionage. The spy the US recruited was to provide information on German responses to the Snowden revelations which in turn were the product of gross (I would argue unconstitutional) overreach, that is the US program of total surveillance.

In addition, oufitting the top floor of the US Embassy on Pariser Platz with eavesdropping equipment was not only unwise, it was stupid and was sure to be noticed at some point.

Ok so this is how the spy world works, what exactly is this supposed to achieve exactly. The stock answers of national security or this is not a Pollyanna world are simply good enough. What is the purpose of spying on Merkel, what are the trying to achieve with this, and more importantly how can a government openly state they are close allies yet behind the scenes treat them as enemies ?

Also regarding this comment by the senator: “…I think it is incredibly troublesome that a foreign government would try to interfere either with a federal election or the seating of a senator on a specific committee in order to pursue its foreign policy goals.”
Its incredible he can say that when AIPAC and Israel does this on a daily basis.

German reader/Johann/Seydlitz: I was not trying to justify what the US does with its NATO allies only explaining how it works and what motivates it. For what it’s worth, I think that spying on NATO allies is ridiculous and unlikely to produce anything that enhances US national security. I strongly oppose it.

The Germans are understandably angry that America is treating Germany to a watered down version of the way that Israel treats America, although the Germans wouldn’t put it that way. And there’s a sense in which this is just the game as it is played – es war immer so. But let’s hope things are patched up soon. Our foreign policy situation is dire enough without adding a furious friend and ally to the mix.

If we started behaving more like our fairly decent and likable selves and less like the post 9/11 Imperial Lord High Frankenstein the world would be a lot better off.

Good stuff about the Cubanos floating dirt on Menendez. Couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.

“So, we should pardon Jonathan Pollard? You know, if this sort of thing is to be expected and tolerated coming from a friendly nation’s intelligence service.”

I, too, had Jonathan Pollard in mind when I read of this account and how the CIA’s talking heads on TV so blithely dismiss German concerns. I guess Philip Giraldi is of the same mindset.

But isn’t what this German double agent did the same as what Pollard did. And didn’t the U.S. deport his Israeli minders (and those supervising other Israeli spies) when they cracked his case? It is hardly becoming for the CIA’s apologists to patronizingly admonish the Germans for “overreacting” to what the U.S. has been caught doing in Berlin.

Yes, we send agents into foreign countries, friendly and not, to gather information considered to be vital to our pursuing our foreign policy with intelligence. But 90%, at the least, should be doing things which are legal for anyone to do in the country where they are gathering their intelligence. And, in countries where we are dependent upon its government to assist us in our foreign policy goals, we should respect their secrecy laws as we expect them to respect ours. If we don’t, we will lose far more than we gain, particularly if Germany, which can afford to do so, decides to chart a course as independent of the United States, say, as India or Brazil, not to mention China and Russia.

Giraldi again confirms what Obama has refused to acknowledge, that the U.S. has agreements with Canada and the U.K., not to engage in these kinds of operations infiltrating their governments. Germany has publicly asked for a similar agreement. Can he explain why American intelligence agencies are rebuffing this overture?

Just to agree with Philip Giraldi’s July 11th response to German reader/Johann/Seydlitz that “spying on NATO allies is ridiculous and unlikely to produce anything that enhances US national security. I strongly oppose it”: This article by Jacob Heilbrunn from Daniel Larison’s collection of the week’s most interesting reads:

So, we should pardon Jonathan Pollard? You know, if this sort of thing is to be expected and tolerated coming from a friendly nation’s intelligence service.

No, as an American Pollard is a traitor.

The point is that you don’t declare Israel no longer an ally because of the Pollard situation.

It is expected that Israel will spy on us, and we on them, and the same with any ally; but it is also expected that we will punish the individual spies hen they are caught if it is consistent with the law and policies to do so (e.g. in some cases diplomatic immunity might throw a wrench in this).

The curious thing about the Menendez case is that the Cuban Directorate of Intelligence appears to have picked the wrong story, believing that a sex case would prove most damaging to the Senator’s career.

The sex case obviously would be more damaging than the travel case – if people could be convinced it were true.

“Two women backstopped the newspaper account by swearing that they had been with Menendez and had been paid for their services, though they subsequently recanted.”

Sounds like a standard application of the same old sexual scandal chestnut engineered against Snowden ally Julian Assange – right down to the women’s recantations. As Giraldi points out, standard operating procedure for those seeking secret information while dissembling public disinformation – albeit, in the current moral climate of libertinism, somewhat behind the times and ineffectual.

I tend to believe the story about Menendez and his proclivity for underage hookers, as it fits the Washington mold rather nicely. Does anyone still believe that these men are some sort of angels, gracing us with their presence, their wisdom, and their compassion? Or does anyone not believe that these men are simply part of the elite ruling class who feel they are above the laws we serfs must follow?

Angela,
Both Obama and Bush are deaf to allies when it comes to spying. Israel spies on the US constantly and the US does nothing which makes me wonder if the whole US national security state being constructed and the endemic spying by the US allies is really coming out of the neocons / neoliberals / AIPAC / Israel.

Does Angela Merkel whom is respected throughout Europe and Russia and the world REALLY THINK that kicking 1 spie out of Germany is going to penetrate Obama or Bush for that matter.

Angela would need to do something that would penetrate beyond the AIPAC / Israel lobboes promoting the National Security state in the US…something like withdrawing Germany’s Ambassador to the US and threatening the break diplomatic ties between the US and Germany. THE US IS NOT GOING TO GIVE UP RELATIONSHIP WITH GERMANY OR THE UK OR THE EU FOR ISREAL AND AIPAC.

Angela you have to play the game the way the Israeli’s play the game if you want to get your message received through their power brokers that control the US.

In a cynical mood, I kind of expected that in P. Giraldi’s more or less even-handed piece, I predicted that US spying (gathering information) on Germany would be greeted by AmCon commentators as utterly outrageous, while Cuban black ops smeer against American politicians would be defended as basically normal, even admirable. A bit surprised to my most cynical expectations confirmed.

Menendez is trotting this story out to shore up his base, Cuban American voters. It’s also a hoped-for partial inoculation against a current federal investigation of his financial relationships. He isn’t thought of as a clean, respectable politician in NJ. If he is indicted, no one in NJ would be shocked.